25th of March - THE SINGLE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!
I would never have thought it. I know. After this experience I can only say again and again how glad I am that my parents didn't rise me in Christian faith - because otherwise I would never have been able to consciously live the best moment of my life! I always talked against infant baptism because I felt that a child should be able to decide for itself. (though I guess it is not too bad in the end, just for me personally I think it was good not to have been baptised as a baby).
I know - you are supposed to get your new life when you get baptised. Go into the water as a sinner and come out with the new life Jesus gave you. But I would never ever have believed that it feels so true! So real! This one little moment - when you are put under the water - and when you come out again as a different person... FEELING the presence of Christ - KNOWING that God is real - that God is there... As if with this little gesture, those seconds I spent covered with water, washed all my pain and burdens away - and all that stayed was life! As if all the bad things that left their scars in my life got healed - and what stayed was a happy person. Genuinely happy. Feeling a peace nothing could ever destroy.
The service itself was great, too! It all went so fast, though it must have been the hour long that it usually is... (
Here you can download the sermon from that day - only a very short one, ten minutes - I am mentioned in the end of it - it would be the one from the 25th of March by Reverend Ken Walton - theme: "armchair supporters") I was allowed to choose a song - and there are so many good songs, but the one I chose is
Shout to the Lord - a lovely song - which then was the opening song for the service.
We had this portable baptistery in our church, filled with water the night before to warm it up to room temperature. We desperately tried to heat the water before, but sadly the hot water supply ran out of hot water... and it was freezing! We were two people who got baptised - and I guess the first thing we thought when we stood in the pool was
"I honestly don't want to lie down in this..." But it was the most amazing feeling ever - and in the end everything was over that fast, that I didn't even have much time to feel cold...
A few pictures (I might add more at a later date, however, at the moment I only have very few photos myself...)
me and a few more friends...
After the baptism I stayed with friends for lunch, actually spent the whole day there. It was a lovely sunny day. Each second of the day was lovely, perfect. If anything was ever perfect in my life, then it was this day! In the evening there was an event in the Guild Hall in Preston that we went to, a Christian band playing songs, a preacher from Los Angeles doing a fantastic sermon. The emotional moment when the second last song the band played at the end of the evening was "Shout to the Lord" giving the day a perfect ending.
